The first space hurricane ever was spotted in August 2014, consisting of “an eddy of plasma, a type of superhot, charged gas found throughout the solar system,” reports Business Insider. “And instead of rain, this storm brought showers of electrons.” From the report: In August 2014, satellites observed a swirling mass with a quiet center more than 125 miles above the…
Tag: solar wind
‘Earth wind’ may generate water on the moon
Particles carried from Earth’s poles via our planet’s magnetosphere could be interacting with lunar rocks to create small quantities of water on the moon. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/earth-wind-may-generate-water-on-moon…
NASA explores solar wind with new view of small sun structures
Scientists have combined NASA data and cutting-edge image processing to gain new insight into the solar structures that create the Sun’s flow of high-speed solar wind, detailed in new research published today in The Astrophysical Journal. This first look at relatively small features, dubbed “plumelets,” could help scientists understand how and why disturbances form in the solar wind. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-01-nasa-explores-solar-view-small.html…
Energy from solar wind favors the north
Using information from ESA’s Swarm satellite constellation, scientists have made a discovery about how energy generated by electrically-charged particles in the solar wind flows into Earth’s atmosphere—surprisingly, more of it heads towards the magnetic north pole than towards the magnetic south pole. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-01-energy-solar-favors-north.html…
Watch: 25 years of the sun
This video, merging more than 2 decades of footage from SOHO cameras, captures thousands of sunspots, flares, and coronal mass ejections breaking out from the sun. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/sun-25-years-video-solar-flare-cme-sunspot…
What are coronal mass ejections?
Coronal mass ejections – CMEs for short – are powerful eruptions near the surface of the sun that can ripple through our solar system and can interrupt satellites and power grids on Earth. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/what-are-coronal-mass-ejections…
Scientists get the lowdown on sun’s super-hot atmosphere
A phenomenon first detected in the solar wind may help solve a long-standing mystery about the sun: why the solar atmosphere is millions of degrees hotter than the surface. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-12-scientists-lowdown-sun-super-hot-atmosphere.html…
Voyager Probes Detect New Kind of ‘Electron Burst’ in Interstellar Space
“NASA’s twin Voyager probes keep making discoveries in interstellar space,” reports Space.com The Voyager mission has detected a new type of “electron burst,” which will provide insights into the mechanisms of flaring stars, a new study reports. The bursts occur when cosmic ray electrons — fast-moving particles from far beyond the solar system — are pushed by shock waves generated by…
NASA Video Captures Decades of the Sun’s Spitting Fury
An anonymous reader shares a report: Dec. 2 was the 25th anniversary of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a joint project from NASA and the European Space Agency. To celebrate, the agencies released a dramatic, nearly 50-minute-long video showing the sun blasting out solar material from 1998 through 2020. The SOHO spacecraft constantly stares at the sun, recording its every…
Laboratory experiments unravelling the mystery of the Mars moon Phobos
Of course, there is no weather in our sense of the word in space—nevertheless, soil can also “weather” in the vacuum of space if it is constantly bombarded by high-energy particles, such as those emitted by the sun. The Martian moon Phobos is affected by a special situation: it is so close to Mars that not only the solar wind but…